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The Jays are struggling right now through all the same failures they have experienced since opening day, adding the curse of injuries to the starting rotation, the triceps inflammation of Josh Johnson and the head injury and knee sprain of J.A. Happ.

As we have often said, any team that is a true contender needs to put together two or three win streaks of at least eight games. The Jays’ longest win streak is three in a row. Until they post that first eight-game (minimum) win streak, there’s no use even talking about them as contenders. Can it happen with Johnson and Happ out, with Ricky Romero banished back to the minors and with a Buffalo staff full of veteran journeymen leading them to victory? Not likely, so they will likely take this same feeling of futility into June, winning a couple, losing a few, etc. The clock is forever ticking. On to the Mailbag.

Q. I have watched the J.A. Happ injury (on Tuesday) over and over again on the networks and one of the biggest questions I have is in regards to the umpires. These are people who make calls in minutiae on a minute by minute basis which will affect the outcome of a game, but when it came to a decision that may have affected someone’s life . . . they chose to do nothing until someone had run 180 feet. Will the umpires be disciplined in any way? Thanks,

Jeff

A. I did think it was a disgrace that with a stricken pitcher obviously in physical distress and with teammates worried about Happ and not even concerned about playing the ball, that the play was not immediately stopped to attend to Happ. That is on the umpires and MLB should be concerned.

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There should be a rule in the instructions to umpires in which umpires can call time out right away and then place the runners in their judgment, no more than two bases, maybe just one. In any case, this time, the fact that the umpires didn’t was quite disturbing.

Q. Hello Richard,

What in your expert opinion are the factors that will turn around the ongoing woes of this Blue Jays team that so very many fans had such high hopes for?

Best regards.

Tony D’Souza, Toronto

A. The main thing must happen to turn around the Jays current, ongoing woes is boasting a five-man rotation that outpitches the other team’s rotation in head-to-head matchups. For that to happen, the Jays need to tighten up the defence. That has started to happen. Dickey has physically been less than 100 per cent, losing a little velocity off his knuckleball because of upper back and neck woes that have forced him to elevate the knuckler with more of them being hit hard. If Johnson is healthy when he gets back in late May, that will help. Buehrle has been making 2-3 bad pitches per game and the team’s offence has not covered for him. Brandon Morrow has started to come around and J.A. Happ was the most consistent starter until he got hurt. Q. Hi Richard,

I was reading an article in the Star after Monday’s opener in Tampa, where a reporter asks J.P. (Arencibia) why he wasn’t starting instead of Henry (Blanco). Apparently, he was annoyed at being asked this question. My point is maybe you’re not starting because of not paying attention on the base path the game before or maybe missing a pitch that is charged as “wild” to your starter.

Bob Andrews, Brandon, MB

A. I wasn’t in Tampa, but it seemed to me that Arencibia was not so much annoyed by the question as he was annoyed by the fact that he was not the starting catcher that night. Basically, he wants to catch every game other than the R.A. Dickey starts, which would be about 130 games for the season. That’s a lot of starts for any catcher in this day and age and the manager should have the right to start anyone he feels is his best chance that night at winning without a particular player getting bent out of shape.

The extenuating circumstance in this particular J.P. scenario is that whenever the Jays play in Tampa, Arencibia has family and friends that come up from Miami to see him play. But that’s no excuse. The main thing is that it’s not just a player’s offence that makes a good catcher and J.P. does some things that make him closer to Mike Piazza than Pudge Rodriguez. It’s good that a player wants to start every day, but the bottom line is it’s a manager’s decision, what he thinks is best for the team.

Q. Hey Rich.

Great job on the mailbag and the bullpen. Here’s my question. Ok. Maybe it’s a silly question, but I don’t know. Why is a foul tip only an out with 2 strikes?

Thanks.

Dan Frook, Fergus Ontario

A. A foul tip into the catcher’s glove does not involve a fielding play or specific move by the catcher because there is no true change of direction so it’s not considered a batted ball. Thus if it is a third strike tip it is treated as strike three. If it is strike one or strike two and a foul tip is in the catcher’s glove, runners may steal a base since it is treated like any other strike. If a foul tip is dropped by the catcher the runner must go back, just the same as the batter stays alive on a potential strike three. I think the key is the change of direction. It should be noted that a foul tip that hits the catcher anywhere else but the glove, the mask, the chest, first and is then corralled before it hits the ground is not considered strike three and is not considered an out. Getting a piece of the pitch basically can save the hitter unless the ball is gloved by the catcher.

Q. Hello Mr. Griffin,

This is a non- Jays question, for the most part, although they have been involved (on the wrong end) of a few lopsided games this year: Is there an unwritten rule about hitting when your team has a big lead late in the game? If your team is up 10 runs in the 8th are you more likely to swing at the first pitch? Do players attempt to “go yard” during these at-bats? Is taking a walk frowned upon? What are some of the general unwritten rules of baseball when your team has an insurmountable lead?

All the best,

Morgan Burton

Banff, Alberta

A. There is no unwritten rule regarding an individual batter’s behaviour at the plate when his team has a huge lead in late innings, other than not bunting or no hit-and-run, which, as we found out in the Mexico Canada brouhaha at the WBC, is not received well, either when the bunt is for a sacrifice or a base hit. Other than that, the act of a hitter working a pitcher for a base-on-balls is considered a part of the game and is very acceptable, as is swinging for the fences.

Baseball is a one-on-one challenge between the pitcher and hitter and that does not change. Nobody asks a player to just roll over and give up his own at-bat because his team is up big.

The unwritten rules of big-league sportsmanship are basically aimed at stopping run-creating managerial decisions, like bunting, hit-and-run and against stealing second or third base. Even if a runner at first base is not being held on, a team is expected not to take that open base uncontested with a huge lead. The question becomes what is a big enough lead. I would suggest that a six-run lead, or more, after seven innings is around the right number, or eight-plus after six. Other may suggest other numbers, like Mexico believing a six-run Canadian lead in the seventh was enough. The difference is that in the WBC format, runs and run differential come into play as an important tie-breaker, so Chris Robinson’s bunt single with a 9-3 lead must be viewed in that specific tournament-rules light.

Q. How is it that in your most recent Bullpen column you can list all of the things going wrong with players on the Jays, admit they’re not problems created by decisions made by John Gibbons, and then somehow still blame him for them?

Kevin, Toronto

A. I don’t believe those Jays misfortunes and injuries are things for which I specifically blamed Gibbons. What was being suggested is that if there was going to be a change, that this was a course of action that could be followed, could be done as far as the manager was concerned, to keep the team moving forward.

Clearly, the Jays and Alex Anthopoulos this winter believed that all they needed in order to win with this roster they had assembled was a manager that would not get in the way, just let his team play, which Gibbons has said is his own “just stay out of the way” philosophy.

Clearly, they are finding out that they need more than that. Sometimes an organization feels a change of manager is necessary. It did appear that things with the Jays were headed in that direction. There has not been a call to fire Gibbons, but if there was going to be a change, this would be a way to effect it.

Q. Getting straight to the point, what are your thoughts on why the Jays seem to keep misdiagnosing their players? Off the top of my head this year alone I am thinking of Lawrie, Bautista, now Josh Johnson. We are told one day they’re absolutely fine, no worries, then shortly after it is revealed the player is missing multiple games. Is it intentional deception by the club? Blissful ignorance? An incompetent medical staff? I can understand that diagnosing an injury is not always black and white but if there’s some uncertainty, why not just say “We don’t know yet how long the player will be out”. Why say he’s fine when he’s clearly not? I don’t get it.

Brett, Moncton

A. Internally, management is usually aware of the extent of an injury whenever they offer up one of those positive, overly optimistic views of things. One issue about being accurate is they can only go by what a particular player reports about himself. Some players try to play through pain without ever reporting the true extent of their physical issue. Usually that only happens one time in a player’s career before he realizes that playing through pain is not a solution and he had better get help when he’s hurt.

Chris Carpenter in 2002 did not let the Jays know that his shoulder was hurt because he wanted to pitch on opening day at Fenway Park, since he is from New England. He had surgery after just 13 starts. That upset GM J.P. Ricciardi when he found out and played a role in ending Carpenter’s time in Toronto.

Sometimes there is intentional deception by the club, for instance in the case of a relief pitcher who may or may not be available to pitch in a certain game. An injury may be downplayed so that the opposing manager does not have a matchup edge in handling his lineup against your bullpen.

However, “we don’t know how long a player will be out” is never a great answer as far as the public and the media are concerned. They want information. Teams and the medical personnel tend to go by recent history of similar injuries for their estimates and not everyone is the same. You get a lot of “4-6 weeks” for some injuries, or “three months” for others.

Another factor of recent lies my trainer told me is that in this modern day and age, a player’s medical information is considered by the Players Association to be “personal information” that should not be disseminated to the public or media without the full consent of the player. That attitude has seeped more into sports like hockey — upper body, lower body — than baseball, because baseball player injuries can’t really be targeted by an opponent the way they can in hockey or football.

Q. Dear Richard,

I usually write via your mailbag site, but my computer hasn’t featured an e-mail reply box for awhile. Has AA never heard of Steve Blass? Poor Ricky Romero is done, as I said to you last fall. It seems obvious to everyone but the Jays. How much longer must we listen to Ricky talk about how well he’s throwing, except for the walks, hits and runs he’s allowing? How much longer must we hear AA, Dane Johnson et al talk about how his mechanics just need a tweak? What’s the matter with these people ?

Selby Martin, Toronto

A. Steve Blass, of course, was a World Series hero for the Pirates in the early ’70s who lost his mojo and confidence and couldn’t throw strikes anymore. Blass is still a beloved TV broadcaster with the Pirates. He has moved on from his mental woes, but never again regained his pitching form.

Giving up is something you never do when you have $23.1 million invested in a player through the year 2015. The Romero guaranteed salary necessitates doing everything in their power to get the lefthander’s career back on course, even if it’s to make him attractive in trade to someone else.

Q. Hi Richard,

I recently found my Expos youth cap and my Zellers Expos baseball cards. Looking back it seems Montreal was Canada’s team until the mid 80s, but when the Blue Jays came on and the Hawk and Gary Carter left nationally the Expos were not seen in the media as much even though they still had good teams and good players. Was Canada just too small to support 2 teams nationally who played in the same time zone? Do you foresee Canada ever getting another team with another media conglomerate needing summer programming to support offerings like TSN Ocho? Or is Zellers more likely to make a comeback at this point?

John, Toronto

A. That’s a pretty accurate timeline of the relationship between Canada and its two major-league teams. At one time, in the’70s and ’80s, both teams could be viewed across the country nationally, but when Charles Bronfman sold the Expos in the late ’80s, new owner Claude Brochu decided to circle the wagons inside the province of Quebec and focus on rebuilding the club’s brand locally on TV, especially French language. The idea was when the team was reestablished with its own fans then they could reexpand across the country. The problem was that when Brochu looked up, the Jays had opportunistically tied up the rest of the country to exclusive Jays’ telecasts. Other than some 25-35 TSN national telecasts, the rest of the country saw nothing but Jays. Now the Expos are gone. Will Canada ever get another MLB team? There seems to be hints of solid ownership willing to step up in Montreal, but it’s not likely to happen as long other U.S. cities are seeking a relocated franchise.

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